Doomed To Repeat Itself - The Graham Family History
Over the years, a litany of wrestling fans proclaimed that certain iconic families entrenched in the business had been cursed in some form or another. Most notably, there is the dreaded Von Erich family curse, which saw all but Kevin Von Erich perish in tragic ways, all preceding the natural death of family patriarch Fritz Von Erich. Other families have at one time or another been assigned a curse, including the Hart family, most likely accelerated by the tragic accident that took Owen Hart’s life in 1999, as well as all the other extended family members meeting tragic fates such as Davey Boy Smith. But in the annals of wrestling families, one family would see the patriarch meeting a horrific ending, only for history to repeat itself nearly 30 years later in the same way. Given that the first to meet this fate was one of the most influential figures in the history of professional wrestling, it’s time we look at the tragic tale of the Graham family and how history became doomed and destined to repeat itself.
If you are not familiar with Eddie Graham, either as a wrestler, or, more notably, a booker and promoter, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Born in 1930 as Edward Gossett, the future member of the kayfabe Graham brothers would enter the business that would change his life at 17 in Houston, Texas. Trained by Cowboy Luttrell, Gossett spent the early years of his career seeing minimal success. His most famous claim was that he would sometimes be billed as the brother of the legendary original Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. It wasn’t until near the end of the following decade that he would be rechristened with the name that would define him forever. Now billed as Eddie Graham, he was the kayfabe brother of Dr. Jerry Graham and ‘Crazy’ Luke Graham, a “family” that would also later include ‘Superstar’ Billy Graham. The duo of Eddie and Jerry would see nearly unparalleled success, becoming multiple-time Champions on the East Coast, most notably in the Capitol Wrestling territory of the National Wrestling Alliance. Here, Dr. Jerry Graham became the favourite wrestler of another man who would change the industry, Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
Despite this success, Eddie would leave only two years later and head down to Florida for the NWA affiliate. He would continue to have great success now as a singles star and began to work his way into the backstage side of things. A much-notated incident would happen in 1968 where a giant steel window fell on his head, causing severe damage to his eyes and head. Much has been of this as there was talk of it being set up by some of the boys to help earn Graham the settlement he would receive from the state. This has become a legend, but anyone who knows the actual cause of the incident is no longer here for us to determine the veracity. This would seemingly accelerate the move to booking and promoting, which Graham is more remembered for. Throughout the 1970s, Graham would become one of the most respected and well-known promoters. He would even become the President of the NWA, a lofty position also held by other legends such as Sam Muchnick, Fritz Von Erich and Jim Crockett Jr.
Perhaps in the future, we will dive much deeper into Graham’s history and successes as a booker, but needless to say, the man was considered a genius behind the scenes. Not only was Graham one of the most respected minds, he was also a great tutor to some future geniuses, most notably Kevin Sullivan and ‘The American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes, who sat under his learning tree alongside Graham’s son Mike. Championship Wrestling from Florida, under Eddie’s rule, became one of North America's hottest wrestling promotions. At one time, it could easily be considered as a running mate to Vince McMahon’s WWWF. Eddie was by all accounts a universally beloved figure in the sport, something that sadly would not pass onto the next generation with Mike. In terms of stars that Eddie Graham would have a hand in launching their careers, the list is nearly on par with that of Verne Gagne’s AWA, with stars such as the aforementioned Dusty Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan, but also names like Barry Windham, The Great Malenko (a man who Graham had an epic feud with before his retirement) as well as launching the career of the unparalleled Gordon Solie. Simply put, Eddie Graham was a genius who seemed destined to be in a high position of power for years to come.
Unfortunately, what destiny seems to predict and what reality is to be are not always the same. Graham was a man with his demons, as is often the case in professional wrestling. He battled with depression and alcoholism, which he seemed to defeat at one point but would return to overtake him. In a 2018 shoot interview, Kevin Sullivan revealed that Eddie would fly his plane while drunk but had been sober for over 13 years and discussed what may have been a moment that caused the tip back into alcoholism.
“Me, Keirn and Mike were on a boat one day with Eddie, we were fishing. We were shotgunning beers the three of us. And he said ‘let me try one’ and he shotgunned a beer. Now I don’t know if he had been drinking before that but that was the first time I ever saw him take a drink. And then, ya know, progressively, it kinda took back over on him.”
Unfortunately, between the demons, bad business decisions, and the dip in the territorial system following Vince McMahon’s national expansion of the World Wrestling Federation, things would come to a head on January 21st, 1985. Graham would end his own life with a gunshot to the head. Beyond the horrific effects this had on his family, it was also a blow to the world of professional wrestling and the local Florida area. Graham had been incredibly kind and generous, donating portions of the proceeds from every CWF event to local charities.
Eddie Graham getting his son Mike Graham prepared for a scuba diving lesson on a bright day in Florida in October 1960. [Pro Wrestling Illustrated Aug 1993]
With its figurehead now gone, CWF would continue under Eddie’s son Mike for a brief period but would never reach a level of success warranting the fight it would need to try and keep the business afloat in this new era of ‘sports entertainment.’ Mike would bounce around as a wrestler to different territories over the years, having performed for the AWA and notably Jim Crockett Promotions, to who he had sold CWF as they began their national expansion. Despite being an accomplished in-ring performer, Graham never saw any considerable success beyond the mid-card, most notably with his feud in AWA over the Light Heavyweight Championship against Buck Zumhofe, another noted controversial figure in the sport.
Mike would retire from in-ring competition in 1992 to pursue life as a backstage agent, where he would arguably see much greater success than he ever did in the ring. His run as an agent would not be without controversy, as he would frequently clash with management and talent while making grandiose claims of others' ideas as his own. Perhaps the most famous of these is his insistence that he told Eric Bischoff to bring Hulk Hogan into World Championship Wrestling in 1994, seen by many as the initial catalyst in WCW becoming the first real serious competition to Vince McMahon’s wrestling throne. On top of this, he would also claim to be the one who brokered the deal.
In terms of backstage clashes, two stand out as the largest. First, he would be fired in 1995 from WCW after being the agent (or producer as they are known today) for the disastrous “King of the Road” match between Dustin Rhodes and The Blacktop Bully (Barry Darsow) at 1995’s Uncensored Pay Per View. WCW had a strict no-blood policy at the time, and during the match (which took place in the back of an Eighteen-Wheeler truck moving along the road), both men bladed and got color. The match was edited to minimize this, and all three men were fired for this. Of course, this led Dustin Rhodes to become Goldust, so it wasn’t all for naught.
Mike would later be brought back into the WCW fold, working as an agent and helping out Paul Orndorff and the other trainers at WCW’s Power Plant training facilities. He would remain working under the radar until the end of WCW, except for one particular incident, which many see as one of the final blows to WCW. Following Chris Benoit being booked by Kevin Sullivan to win the WCW World Championship at Souled Out 2000, Graham would allegedly tell Benoit something along the lines of had he slept with his wife (as Benoit had with Sullivan’s now ex-wife Nancy) that he would shoot him as opposed to putting the World title on him. This would be the ammunition needed for Benoit, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero to be let out of their WCW contracts to move to the WWF as the Radicalz.
Following the end of WCW, Mike would work for the short-lived Xcitement Wrestling Federation (read more about the XWF here) and some other indies before being brought on board by the now-WWE. He would generally be used behind the scenes but would appear on many of the historical DVDs that WWE produced, perhaps most famously on The Rise And Fall of WCW, where he proclaimed about Jeff Jarrett, “he broke 6000 guitars and never drew a dime.” He would appear at the 2008 WWE Hall Of Fame and the following night’s WrestleMania XXIV, accepting a Hall Of Fame induction on behalf of his late father.
Much like his late father, Mike’s life was never all roses, and in his later years, he grew even more bitter; something certainly accelerated when his son Stephen took his own life in the same manner that his grandfather had on December 14th, 2010. In a later interview following Mike’s death, his widow Diane Marie Hamilton stated that Mike had confided in her, “I must’ve been a bad son for my father to do this, and I must’ve been a bad father for my son to do this.” It would be easy to predict that anyone would be crushed under the weight of these thoughts, and sadly Mike Graham was no different. He blamed himself not only for his father’s death, something clearly outside his control, as well as the death of his son. All of this would, unfortunately, culminate in what almost seemed tragically destined to happen.
On October 19, 2012, a severely intoxicated man in depression shot himself in the head, a direct mirror of his father's and son's deaths. Tragically, he would be discovered by his wife Diane, a poor woman who now had to find her husband the same way their son had been. Whatever anyone’s feeling may have been about Mike Graham, and it is well-documented the amount of heat he had with others in the business, to see the family history destroyed by alcoholism and depression is undeniably tragic. Three generations of the Gossett family all left this mortal coil similarly.
In the same previous quoted interview, Kevin Sullivan revealed that, while not confirmed, he believed that Eddie’s brother had also committed suicide and thought that a suicidal gene of some sort ran in the family. He also revealed that just days before Mike took his own life, he had called Kevin, who had steadfastly been one of his closest friends in the business, to tell him that he loved him. Whether or not Kevin believed at the time that this was a cry for help is unsure.
Much like the previously mentioned Von Erich family, one of the most historical families in wrestling was tragically cut down. If there is anything to take away from the doomed history of the Graham family, it is to understand that no matter how bad things may seem at any given moment, there is a way out. Unfortunately for Eddie, Stephen and finally Mike, they saw no other way out.
If you are struggling with depression, please reach out to your local options, whether it be the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or whatever other options you may have available to you.
